"grace and truth...through Jesus Christ"

Reading John 1:17
"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

John continues to draw out the contrasting themes that he will develop throughout his gospel. The contrast here is between law and grace. On this reading of the text the thing that stood out to me most forcefully was the contrast between law and truth. The law and grace comparison seems more intuitively easy to make. In what way, however, are law and truth set over against each other?

Truth is a subject of considerable interest to John. John uses the word as many times in his gospel and letters as Paul does in all of his 13 letters combined. John's is the only Gospel that records Pilate's question: "What is truth?".

From the verse we are thinking about it is clear that truth is something other than, even over against, law, and truth is something other than, even alongside of, grace. Truth is something particularly New Testament, something particularly associated with the coming of Jesus, something located in the era of the Spirit.

In John chapter three we find Jesus in conversation with Nicodemus, a "teacher of the law." Jesus says to Nicodemus three times: "I tell you the truth." Jesus says to Nicodemus "you are Israel's teacher...and do not understand..." (v10). Nicodemus has the law but doesn't have the truth. Jesus comes to him three times with this concept. The law tells us right from wrong but does not tell us the truth (in this special sense). Truth appears to be a bigger or fuller category than law. Truth is a corrective to Nicodemus' understanding of the law. Truth is a deeper principle than just "right and wrong." Truth is not in opposition to the law but it understands what the law does not. It is possible to understand exactly what the law says (as Nicodemus does) and yet to know nothing of the truth (as Jesus shows is the case with Nicodemus). The law says: "sin and die,"; the truth says: "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world."

It is easy for the Christian to become more like Nicodemus than like Jesus. Truth is not about knowing right and wrong (which the law graciously and wisely teaches us). Truth is about the more powerful law that Jesus came to institute: "because the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). The law reveals sin, bondage, and condemnation. The truth shows the way to righteousness, freedom, and forgiveness. Jesus shows Nicodemus that his greatest need cannot be met by the law. The law leaves a person in a very uncomfortable position. We have to get past our fixation with right and wrong. This will only lead us to resentments, self-righteousness, self-condemnation, and more bondage to sin.

Do I think that truth is telling people that what they are doing is right or wrong? Do I think that truth is afflicting myself with my sin, guilt and shame? John puts truth on the side of grace and freedom and reveals it as the answer to problems raised in our lives by the law. This is why Jesus says: "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." He never says that the law can do anything like that for us.